Welcome to Safe At Home - The National Home Safety Equipment Scheme

Introduction

The Safe At Home National Home Safety Equipment Scheme is a major initiative to help families keep their children safe from home accidents. The main focus of the national scheme is to provide home safety equipment to the most disadvantaged families in areas with the highest accident rates. This is because children from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to suffer accidental injuries or deaths. Children of parents who are long-term unemployed or who have never worked are 13 times more likely to die as a result of unintentional injury and 37 times more likely to die from exposure to smoke, fire or flames than children of parents in higher managerial or professional occupations. ¹

Safe At Home is not just about equipment. Over the next two years the aim is to provide families with information and support that will help them to make their homes safer environments in which they and their children can live and grow. The information on this site will link to activities provided by local schemes aimed at equipping all parents to keep their children safe. The child safety video here highlights some key important safety messages. Please take a moment to watch it.

You can also read our Safe At Home case studies to find out how the scheme is affecting real people. In addition to our case studies from Dudley and Sunderland you can now read a NEW report from Wolverhampton and comments from families around the country.

Resources

One of the ways in which the Safe at Home scheme hope to provide information and support to all families is through our new resources - the Safe At Home DVD (over 6000 distributed already!) and the accompanying height chart (over 350,000 distributed). These resources are now available to all Children's Centres throughout England.

The DVD is intended to be used as part of a facilitated session with families, and it includes a set of notes giving key facts and discussion points. Following the story of two-year-old Sam as he tried desperately to make his parents aware of the hazards facing him in the family home, it highlights the main causes of accidents to children under 5, and what can be done to prevent them. The height chart is a practical aid that backs up the information in the DVD. Highlighting the key risks and giving prevention advice, it is intended that a copy is left with each family. It can also be used as a stand alone information resource. To order these resources for your Centre, please fill in the resource request form with details of your Centre, and return to Mariette Cox (contact information given on booking form).

On this site - if you want more advice on child safety, what causes accidental injury and how it can be prevented. click here.

Website

This site has two main areas. The Information for Families pages will provide families with up-to-date information on how they can keep their homes and their children safe, as well as highlighting whether schemes are operating in their area and giving details of eligibility and equipment available. The Schemes pages will provide local partners with all the details of how to apply, whether there is an allocation of equipment for your area, details of training and downloadable versions of all documentation necessary to run the scheme.

Whether you are a parent or carer or a local organisation involved in running a local Safe At Home scheme, you will find something here for you.